An article ("New Populism Is Spurring Democrats on the Economy") in the July 16 New York Times points out how Democrats are more and more telling voters that their wage and job loss woes are due to immigration, free trade agreements, and globalization in general.

COMMENTARY:

An article ("A New Populism Is Spurring Democrats on the Economy") in the July 16 New York Times points out how Democrats are more and more telling voters that their wage and job loss woes are due to immigration, free trade agreements, and globalization in general. The Times article states:

Clearly influenced by some of their most successful candidates in last year's Congressional elections, Democrats are talking more and more about the anemic growth in American wages and the negative effects of trade and a globalized economy on American jobs and communities. They deplore what they call a growing gap between the middle class, which is struggling to adjust to a changing job market, and the affluent elites who have prospered in the new economy.... Democratic leaders say that unless Congress restores the confidence of the middle class, it will be hard to sell Americans on more trade or even an immigration overhaul.

A good example of just how outspoken some Democrats are on these issues is Rep. Steve Kagen, who was elected to the House last November from the 8th District of Wisconsin, a Republican stronghold in recent decades. In a recent column in one of the main newspapers in his district, Rep. Kagen stated:

As your newly elected congressman, I have been listening to people throughout our district, and everywhere I go, folks are asking me where I stand on immigration.

There has never been any doubt in my mind that we need a new and tough immigration policy — a national policy that stands on these three essentials: 1) secure our borders, 2) obey our laws, and 3) no amnesty or cutting in line — period.

Every nation has the right to enforce its borders, because a nation ceases to exist when it cannot define and control its borders....

Our borders have been rapidly disappearing, starting with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement. But it doesn't have to be this way....

Several recent presidents sold us a policy of "invisible borders" — a fool's gold policy that erased our borders with Canada and Mexico, and what followed was not only the disappearance of our borders, but our jobs as well.

This unacceptable sales job even has a name — the North American Union, which would guarantee the end of the United States of America. I'm absolutely opposed to it.

There you have it. One of the newly-elected House Democrats making exactly the kinds of points about trade agreements and open borders causing job losses, that the Times article says Democrats across the country are making. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that Rep. Kagen specifically designates "the North American Free Trade Agreement" and "the North American Union" as major problems.

While these views by the Democrats could be minimized as merely political posturing, it is especially noteworthy that organizations as philosophically different as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which promotes open borders, free trade agreements, and globalization, and the John Birch Society (JBS), which opposes open borders, the establishment's free trade agenda, and globalization, have recently published articles connecting wage and job losses with immigration and free trade agreements.

Over the last several years, a striking new feature of the U.S. economy has emerged: real income growth has been extremely skewed, with relatively few high earners doing well while incomes for most workers have stagnated or, in many cases, fallen.... Public support for engagement with the world economy is strongly linked to labor-market performance, and for most workers labor-market performance has been poor....

The authors refer to several polls which show that over the past six to seven years the majority of Americans has switched from supporting trade agreements to opposing them, and that only 35% of Americans with a college degree or higher now say they benefit from the global economy. As a result, the authors are so convinced that the globalization agenda is stalled due to a massive shift in public opinion that they propose a radical redistribution of income for Americans through changing dramatically how Social Security and Medicare are financed.

The bottom line of all this discussion of job losses, immigration, technology, international organizations, and Congress is this: key votes by Congress over the past few decades on immigration, trade agreements, taxes, and regulations have favored international organizations, foreign nations, foreign citizens, and multinational corporations over average American citizens. Congressional action has played a powerful role in the de-industrialization of the United States and has set up our services industry for future job losses in the tens of millions through both offshoring and GATS concessions under the WTO.

(Click here and here and here for additional articles from the "Jobs" issue of The New American.)

The point is that American public opinion is swinging toward rejection of open borders, free trade agreements, and globalization in general on the basis of widespread wage and job losses. This helps explain why the Bush-Kennedy amnesty juggernaut was stopped in its tracks in the Senate in late June.

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